Indonesian Startups’ 2017 Kaleidoscope and 2018 Outlook

Within days, 2017 will is coming to an end. Commonly, Indonesia’s startup is getting aggressive, seen from many growing startups, some are shut-off. Recorded this year, three startup unicorns following Go-Jek.

The rapid growth of startups getting along with digital market strategy. The use of social media to advertise is merely enough, research is needed, and figuring out consumer’s interest to produce such quality contents is a priority.

Startup 2017 Kaleidoscope

Rama points out 14 acquisitions made during this year, some of it are Tiket by Blibli, Kudo by Grab, TemanJalan by Line and the latest Midtrans, Kartuku and Mapan by Go-Jek (still Bank Indonesia’s pending approval) and others.

For him, the acquisition implicitly shows that investors are getting aware, they no longer invest without knowing the profit projection. An exit strategy like acquisition becomes solution as stocks can be the cash to accept by everyone.

Beyond that, this year is a first record of two startups entering Indonesia Stock Exchange, namely Kioson and MCash.

“Next year will be marvelous, there are many startups estimated to select exit strategy,” he said.

In investment, there are 91 reported investments, while some of which are announced unintentionally. Interesting fact is the decreasing number of investment with increasing nominal.

In details, there are 32 startups get investment (seed), 29 startups get Series A funding, and 9 startups get Series B funding. Sector with the most investments are fintech with 29 startups, e-commerce with 14 startups and 9 media startups.

The challenge remains

The challenge remains the same with last year, especially in lack of talents. High demand of talents but not enough source, forcing stratups to recruit foreign talents or hijack other company’s talent by offering higher salary.

In regulation, there are some challenges need to be solved. However, regulator’s approach in handling fintech startup is good enough to balance innovation and regulation. As Bank Indonesia’s approach by presenting BI Fintech Office and launching regulatory sandbox.

Next year’s projection

For Rama, next year will be another fintech year. There are many fintech sectors leaving space to develop, besides payment. In financial industry, incumbent players are more open for collaboration with fintech startups. Thus, next year is expected to have more announcement of business collaboration.

For media startups, next year to 2019 is a political year due to the regional and presiedential election. It will surely affect media news. Many media startups getting investment this year, is expected to be investor’s preparation form.

Other startup sectors such as healthtech gains attention slowly. Seen from many startups getting investment due to its high adoption. In terms of regulation, it will most likely be more complex than fintech because it concerns lives.